True West
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
VS. Theatre
Extended through November 2
RECOMMENDED:
Long before it disappeared, the Old West cast a spell on a certain kind of person — men (although a few were women) who savored the possibility of wide-open country and a better, freer life unshackled from the demands and hypocrisies of social convention. The aspirations of these hopefuls flourished side-by-side, and sometimes intertwined, with the more urban American dream of self-made wealth, celebrity and success, primarily in trade and invention, but also in the arts and the lucrative movie business.
Both perspectives occupy major space in Sam Shepard’s True West, a quintessentially American play about two brothers caught up in a cycle of hostility and violence, and desperate to gauge their manhood by the barometers of both myths, and of each other.
Featuring Peter Coyote and Jim Haynie, True West premiered in 1980 at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, and over the years has attracted the talents of many well-known actors, including John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, in a definitive production at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in 1982. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly performed it on Broadway in 2000, sometimes switching roles. (Artistic director of VS. Theatre, Johnny Clark, who plays one of the principal characters, tells us in the program notes that seeing the 1984 American Playhouse broadcast of the Steppenwolf production spurred him to become an actor.)
Directed by Scott Cummins, the play is set in a modest home in the San Gabriel Mountains 40 miles from L.A. This is the childhood home of Austin (Clark), an aspiring screenwriter, and Lee (Andrew Hawkes), a drifter and petty thief who has just returned from a three-month sojourn in the desert. The house is regularly occupied by their mom (Carole Goldman), currently vacationing in Alaska. Austin is housesitting for her while laboring over a story synopsis for an imminent meeting with a film producer, Saul (David Starzyk). A go on this project means the world to him (as anyone who’s ever aspired to screenwriting well understands).
For Austin, Lee’s appearance‚ not just at this critical moment but at any time — is unexpected and disconcerting. The socialized Austin is a literate man, married with kids. Lee is itinerant and unsettled, a small-time criminal with a menacing air and a simmering rage that’s impossible to ignore. Years of dealing with Lee have taught Austin to address his intimidating sibling tactfully and deferentially; he even invites him up north to stay with him and his family.
But things take a radical turn after Saul shows up and Lee somehow persuades him to a twosome game of golf. That morning on the course, Lee sells Saul on his own script idea — and unfortunately for Austin, Saul’s enthusiasm for Lee’s story relegates his own to second priority. Hitherto restrained, Austin now grows progressively more upset, then angry, then enraged — leading to an explosive confrontation with Lee that ultimately distills their essence as two sides of the same coin.
Both Clark and Hawkes establish solid personas in the first act: Clark’s polite, cautious and controlled screenwriter, a man who’s pulled himself up to the middle class and now treats his brother almost as a social worker might treat a volatile client, and Hawke’s lurking time bomb of an itinerant, aware of his power to instill fear and quite prepared to decimate at any time.
The glitches come in the second half when the play lurches from kitchen sink realism to a freakish hyperreality. The scenario is transformed, revealing that Austin, when provoked, is no milquetoast, while deep down the scurrilous Lee harbors a conventional desire for recognition and success. It’s this turnabout that (as of opening performance) needs finessing, by planting the seeds of these shifts earlier in the play.
Production/set designer Danny Cistone embellishes the modest interior (per Shepard’s direction) with a beamed ceiling, a nice touch that adds a bit of spaciousness to the tiny stage. Violence designer Ned Mochel’s choreography is wild and at time electric, though unfortunately the small playing space constrains the actors’ movements. Sound by Lindsay Jones, in particular the simulation of the coyotes whose cries define the landscape of the play, would be more effective were it less frequent and more subdued.
In their support roles, Starzyk projects the eely essence of a Hollywood producer, while Goldman’s befuddled matriarch strongly hints at why her sons are as they are.
VS. Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd., Wilshire Vista; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; extended through Nov. 2. https://vstruewest.brownpapertickets.com. Running time: approximately one hour and 45 minutes with an intermission.
